this cancels out the hurt
by carpfish
Summary: The cat just shows up one day and starts following Makoto. There's really nothing that he can do about it- it just appeared behind him on the way to school, and now it won't go away. hanamiya makoto & kiyoshi teppei ft. kirisaki daiichi kiki the tabbycat.


**kuroko no basuke, fanfiction.**

**oneshot, kiyoshi teppei & hanamiya makoto, ft. kirisaki daiichi.**

**wordcount:** 1519

**warning(s):** catfic, idek, crappy writing, lazy writing, ooc, character death

_once upon a time and an age ago, i posted a request for people to send me hanamiya-related prompts for fics. i received one for a kiyohana fic, and one for a fic in which makoto finds a cat, so i decided to combine those. it's taken me a century to actually get around to doing it, and since then i've accidentally cleared my entire inbox, so i don't remember who it was who sent those prompts. but finally, here it is, and i'm sorry for how it turned out. idek either. this turned out a lot lazier than i planned. _

* * *

The cat just shows up one day and starts following Makoto. It's a brown tabby that looks a bit too chubby to be a street cat, but lacks a collar. It crawls out of an alleyway as Makoto passes, as if passing through a portal from another dimension, and stupidly decides to take a liking to the first person it sees. There's really nothing that Makoto can do about it- it just appeared behind him on the way to school, and now it won't go away. Makoto's tried everything from kicking it, crossing the street, bribing it with food, and throwing things at it, but the blasted feline refuses to go away. It even sinks its claws into Makoto's leg in an attempt to hold on once it gets close enough, meowing pitifully. In the end, he is forced to give in to its feline charms, and has to drag it along with him in order to make it to morning practice on time. Peals of thunderous laughter echoes through Kirisaki Daiichi's gym when the basketball team's fearsome captain and coach limps in with a kitten attached to his right foot. This, of course is promptly punished by the tripling of the day's training regime. By the end of practice, nobody is laughing anymore, not even when Makoto exits the locker room with the brown tabby cat draped over his arm like a stuffed animal.

He shuts the creature in his locker before class, since the slits in the door will ensure that it won't suffocate. However, at some time around the second class of the day, it appears as if the cat has pulled off a rather impressive escaping act, and shows up outside the door of Makoto's classroom. The dark-haired boy isn't amused, but the teacher just so happens to be an owner of many cats herself, and therefore permits this infringement of the school rules just once, allowing the kitten to spend the class perched on the windowsill next to her desk. It must be an optical illusion of some sort caused by the striped markings on its face, but when Makoto's eyes stray towards it, the cat almost appears to be smiling widely like an idiot. Makoto resists the urge to toss his books at it.

During lunch time, the cat gives yet another display of its feline powers of charm and persuasion; half the girls in the class gather about Makoto's desk, cuddling and petting the kitten while all the time cooing about how cute it is that it likes Makoto, and wondering where it came from. Their presence is an unwanted disturbance, and Makoto would really love nothing more than for them to just go away, but some wishes are never meant to be fulfilled. His ears ring with his classmates' high-pitched squeals of adoration. The girls debate on several names for the cat, ranging from Popyon to Nyansuke to Yuigadokusonmaru, but there is a finally consensus on 'Kiki', which- in Makoto's opinion- is a rather absurd name.

When class is over, Makoto has no choice but to bring the cat along with him to basketball practice yet again, since despite how much the girls in his class dote over the thing, 'Kiki' refuses to go along with any of them, insistent on nuzzling its head against Makoto's leg in an affectionate manner that makes the boy want to cringe, especially when he hears the kitten purr. Despite the morning's harrowing, the team is none less excited to see the cat again. It makes itself quite comfortable, finding a resting spot on the stomach of a sleeping Seto. Hara fishes a piece of ribbon out from who-knows-where, possibly plucked right from some poor girl's hair, and begins to dangle it in front of the kitten. The brown bundle of fur lets out a delighted mewl and immediately begins to bat at its new toy, which causes enough movement to jostle Seto from its sleep. Yamazaki proposes that they get a laser pointer for the cat to play with, and in a manner disturbingly similar to the girls in Makoto's class, Furuhashi can't seem to stop petting the thing, wearing an expression of wonder. Makoto can't help but lament the fact that his entire team is enamored with the beast.

By the end of that day's aferschool practice, the team is already thoroughly disenchanted with the cat, especially after seeing it smile at them from its spot on Makoto's lap after their training regime has been tripled once again. As Makoto exits the locker room, he finds the cat sitting at the entrance with an expectant look, as if it'd been waiting for him. Makoto sneers, and once again attempts to chase the thing away, but it's clearly an exercise in futility. 'Kiki' eventually trails Makoto home- across roads, over bridges, and even onto the train, which inspires more strange looks and doting from surrounding observers. It is only when Makoto refuses to let the cat into his apartment complex and slams the gate in its face that he is rid of the thing for the night.

The next morning, Makoto awakes to find a very satisfied-looking tabby sleeping in the flowerbox that he hangs outside his window on the fifth floor of the building, cushioned by the mangled corpses of his beloved flowers. At the same time, he gives up ever getting rid of the cat, and seriously contemplates tossing it out the window just to see if cats really do always land on their feet.

As luck would have it, Makoto's mother takes a shine to the feline. She has Makoto post up notices to the cat's owner, should it be a lost housecat, and when there is no response after an entire month, she somehow convinces his father to allow her to keep it. His agreement is not surprising in the least, considering that the man isn't home most days, so the presence of a cat would barely even affect him. Luckily, his mother trains the cat to defecate in the litter box, sleep in its own bed, and- most importantly- not to massacre flowers; so as long as it stays out of his room when he's studying, and doesn't try to follow him to school anymore, Makoto decides that he may be able to cohabitate with the creature. After all, having some company when both parents are on overseas business trips isn't entirely bad.

It's been roughly half a year since the cat began living with Makoto (although Makoto is fairly certain that it adopted him instead of the other way around), and he still refuses to refer to it by that ridiculous name. Furuhashi still fawns over it like a middle-school girl in a shoujo manga whenever he visits, but other than that, Makotos's become quite accustomed to its presence. It's rather uncharacteristic when one Saturday afternoon, when both Makoto's parents are out on business, the cat darts out of its position curled up in Makoto's lap for no apparent reason, and dashes out the door. Makoto pauses the movie and rises the couch, looking around to search for anything that might have caused the feline's sudden outburst, but sees nothing. It only takes a few moments before he decides to slip on a pair of shoes and follow the cat.

Even after being domesticated, the cat's escape artist tendencies have not been hindered, and the cat scurries its way onto the road through a network of pipes and railings on outer wall of the building before Makoto can even open the door. By the time Makoto makes it onto street level, he only manages to catch a glimpse of taill as the cat slides around the corner of the street. This chase continues on for several more streets, until the cat has finally reached its destination. Makoto finds it perched on a stone in the local graveyard, and he can't help but think that it's a rather morbid location for the cat to suddenly take flight to.

He stops and stares, the blood in his veins freezing into ice, when he sees exactly what it is that the cat is sitting on. The grave bears few marks of wear from wind and rain, so Makoto is fairly sure that it hasn't been there very long. Makoto's eyes look back and forth, from the brown tabby cat that smiles widely at him, to the words clearly etched into stone. "Kiyoshi Teppei", they read. Makoto suddenly feels cold. The cat purrs.

Makoto sometimes wonders how Teppei died; Sometimes he imagines it to be suicide, other times, the brunette may have been hit by a truck while saving a kid, since he always did enjoy acting the 'hero'. He tells himself that there are many Kiyoshi Teppeis in the world, and it's not for certain that the grave belongs to the man that he knew.

Those nights, Makoto lies awake with thoughts buzzing in his head, until the cat curls up besides him under the covers, cuddling close to him for warmth. Only then does Makoto feel absolved of his sins.


End file.
